Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney and other Liberal party leadership candidates have all acceded to the annexationist US president’s demand to massively increase military spending. But defunding the Canadian Forces (CF) is one of the clearest ways to stand up to Donald Trump and reclaim sovereignty.
The CF grew out of the British forces that disposed of indigenous communities to conquer Turtle Island and much of the world. As the US replaced Britain as global hegemon, the CF leadership shifted its orientation from the chief conquering power to its successor. This shift was relatively seamless for economic, geographical, linguistic, cultural and racial reasons. In Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy: the Canadian Navy and foreign-policy Fred Crickard and Gregory Witol contrast the difference in thinking between the leaderships of five navies with historic connections to Britain. While the Indians, Argentinians and South Africans saw themselves “as hegemons or would-be hegemons of regional sea power”, write Crickard and Witol, “the Australian and Canadian navies left the mantle of the British Empire and donned that of the US Navy. The leadership in both countries see their navies as part of great armadas led by a major naval power prepared to fight anywhere on the globe.”
Today the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) regularly patrols alongside the US navy from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean, Horn of Africa to the Caribbean. It has often displayed greater fidelity to its US counterparts than Canadian political leaders.
In what Jack Granatstein labeled “the single greatest breach of proper civil-military relations in Canadian history”, the RCN participated in the illegal 1962 US blockade of Cuba without official political support. According to Lieutenant Bruce Fenton, the RCN “assumed responsibility for surveillance of Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic while the United States Navy was engaged in operations around Cuba.” A Canadian aircraft carrier, two submarines and 22 specialized antisubmarine ships searched for Soviet subs in the Atlantic during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The commander in Halifax (Flag Officer Atlantic Coast) Kenneth Lloyd Dyer quietly deployed his forces and simply said the operation was part of fleet exercises with the US Navy. In The Sea Is at Our Gates: The History of the Canadian Navy, former naval commander Tony German describes a mission tacitly approved by the defense minister but not by the prime minister or external minister who disagreed about Cuba. German writes, “the Navy, with Maritime Air Command, honored Canada’s duty to stand by her North American ally, without one scrap of paper, memo, minutes, or message, or one public announcement to give it direction or approval.” Still, German and other militarist authors support the self- deployment. Naval historian Peter Haydon writes, “one cannot find fault with Admiral Dyer’s decision to take action without direction from Naval Service Headquarters; he merely did what he believed was in the best interests of the fleet and national defense.”
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) leadership has also demonstrated US-centric tendencies. Before the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) formal creation in 1958 the RCAF had been expanding ties to the US command in Colorado Springs. In 1951 the RCAF attached several liaison officers to Colorado Springs. The air force misled the politicians about the scope of these efforts. In Dilemmas in Defence Decision-Making: Constructing Canada’s role in NORAD, 1958- 96 Ann Crosby points out that the CF pursued NORAD discussions secretly “in order to address the politically sensitive issues without the involvement of Canadian political representatives.”
While the CF frames the alliance as an exclusively military matter, NORAD’s political implications are vast. The accord impinges on Canadian sovereignty, influences weapons procurement and ties Canada to US belligerence. Under the accord the Colorado-based commander of NORAD could deploy Canadian fighter jets based in this country without any express Canadian endorsement.
Canadian NORAD personnel were put on high alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis even though Prime Minister Diefenbaker hesitated in fully supporting the belligerent US actions. During the 1973 Ramadan/Yom Kippur/Arab-Israeli War Canadian equipment and personnel at NORAD headquarters were also put on heightened alert. Washington wanted to deter the USSR from intervening on Egypt’s behalf. Canadian politicians weren’t consulted or notified about the heightened alert for around ten hours, which spurred Pierre Trudeau’s government to request changes to the agreement.
Through NORAD Canada assisted the ghastly 2003 invasion of Iraq even though the Jean Chrétien government didn’t officially join the George W. Bush administration’s “coalition of the willing”. Canadian troops supported the war in many other ways: Dozens of Canadian soldiers were integrated in US units fighting in Iraq; Canadian fighter pilots participated in “training” missions in Iraq; Three different Canadian generals oversaw tens of thousands of international troops there; With Canadian naval vessels leading maritime interdiction efforts off the coast of Iraq, Ottawa had legal opinion suggesting it was technically at war with that country.
Highly secretive Canadian special forces commandos reportedly worked alongside their British and US counterparts in Iraq. While Ottawa refused to confirm it, the Pentagon and British Foreign Office told CBC that Canada’s elite JTF2 was instrumental in the March 2006 rescue of British and Canadian Christian Peace activists held hostage in Iraq.
“In recent years,” noted a 2017 Washington Examiner story, “JTF-2 has worked very closely with U.S. forces in operations around the globe.” They often operate under US command. In fact, a great deal of the information about JTF2 missions has come to light because the US military is more forthcoming with information on their special forces’ operations.
On land, sea or air the CF is deeply tied to their US counterparts. It starts at the top. “Over the last 15 years or more, there has not been one Chief of Staff who has not been vetted or trained by the U.S. Armed Forces”, wrote Tony Seed in a 2017 article titled “‘Interoperability’ – Euphemism for integration and annexation of Canadian Forces in the service of empire-building.” New Chief of the Defence Staff, Jennie Carignan, trained at the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military Studies, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Considering her and the broader military’s ties to their US counterparts, it’s not surprising that Carignan recently told Le Devoir she wasn’t worried about Trump’s threats to annex Canada. Instead, she said the CF are worried about official US enemies Iran, Russia, China and North Korea. (Last Wednesday I sought to press Carignan on her statement but was ejected from the press conference though as they pushed me out I asked Carignan if the Canadian “military is an extension of the US empire”. She ignored the question.)
It is possible to create a military structured to defend Canada. But the CF is currently designed to advance US imperial interests, not defend Canadian soil.
If any government was truly interested in asserting Canadian sovereignty, in standing up to the United States, the last thing it would do is devote greater public resources to a military totally integrated with a country threatening tariffs and annexation.
Yves Engler is the author of Stand on Guard for Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military and twelve other books
